How to be a mooky magickal Christian

by Tricia J

Alternative Christian: Can a practising Christian also practise magick? Let's consider prayer, spells, magic and earth worship in a happy Christian context. Food for thought.

Growing up in a Christian home is tough for me, especially considering many of my personal beliefs are condemned by the Bible. My beliefs consist of Wiccan and Christian influences; my friends playfully call me a Christian pagan. Into Magick and meditation, I believe in a Goddess and a God, and have a love for the Earth. However, I hold many Christian views as well; I believe in Jesus Christ, as well as many of the stories that are in the Bible. If you'll pardon the terrible pun, I don't take everything in the Bible as gospel: I simply do not agree with or believe the many statements made about women being a lesser gender and, among other things, about witches being evil.

As you can imagine, this causes many sparks to fly between myself and my devout Christian parents. How do I survive? It's tricky, I assure you. But as I realized the following points, and brought them up to my parents and friends, things got easier.

What is Magick?

Magick is, to me, a prayer to the God and Goddess. Magick isn't parlour tricks or waving around a wand for show (though the wand is a useful magical tool used to cast a circle.) When one is performing a spell, it's necessary to get into a 'magickal mood', which I prefer to achieve through meditation. When I want to do a spell, I check the Lunar cycle first, to make sure the night is right. Then I meditate. I do this by clearing my mind of all negativity, and forgive whoever I'm grudging against. This normally takes about an hour, which is of course pretty long. I then gather my materials, cast my circle, and begin the spell.

Magick and prayer

Well, one day I was sitting and thinking about spells and prayer, and I realized: The way I choose to practise them, magick and prayer are, to me, the same thing!

• Christian beliefs: Pray to God as a form of communication.
• Wiccan beliefs: Magick is a form of communication to Deity.

See what I mean? I also began to think about two things: Firstly, how most of us pray: "Dear God, thanks for today, please give me (insert thing here), Amen." Secondly I thought about how much time I put into spells. Now, if I could put all that magickal effort of preparation for a spell into my prayers - in fact, if all practising Christians did that - surely we would all be much, much happier!

When I raised this point of view with my friends, there really was no rebuttle, except for this: "But the Bible says Magick is evil." Yes, but in counter-proposal to that, how is Magick defined in the Bible? Is it really evil?

The Bible and Magic

In my Bible, under the dictionary thing, it says that Magic is essentially the bringing to life of dead spirits and communication with spirits. That sounds more like necromancy to me. What Wiccans do, then, according to the Bible, really isn't evil; in fact, I think that what we witches do is more like what the Bible tells us to do.

Christianity and Earth reverence

I have an amazing reverance for the Earth. I love the Earth; it's all such a miracle! Look at the trees, the sky, the grass. It all blends together perfectly, and Nature is so marvelously created. Everything co-exists so well in Nature, and every breath we breathe is a miracle in itself. The Bible says to respect and care for the Earth, which is what Wiccans do, really.

So, when you think about it, Wiccans and Christians really aren't all that different - or at least, we needn't be. I get flack from both Pagans and Judeo-Christian believers, telling me I can't believe both, that they conflict too much; but the way I see it, they mesh perfectly to create a cohesive and positive whole.

Being in the middle, I 've stumbled upon a path of self-realization. While you may think that this is all a bunch of hogwash, it makes perfect sense to me. So, I hope this has given a bit of insight on 'Christian-Pagans', or at least a good titter - or food for thought.

Be Merry and Blessed Be.

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